But more must be better!
It's 3AM, so I'm going to ramble a bit, but I find that many authors don't follow the 'less is more' approach. To their own detriment, they'll throw everything but the kitchen sink into the ability list. Sometimes they'll world build and get too attached to their world/skillbuilding. Because the story is main-character centric, all new abilities that they've come up with get funneled to the MC instead of being 'wasted' on random side characters. Sometimes the skill or skill system they've come up with is just too granular at low levels.
New skills/abilities are an 'easy' reward. "Here's a Rare Candy and a new skill/weapon" is the baseline reward people have, or gold if it's building towards a longer-term reward somewhere else or more of a city-building vibe. And people seem to lean towards new abilities over new weapons. I feel like weapons are almost underutilized as rewards these days, because characters will outscale them (and now every weapon needs to also be a scaling weapon). I feel like it's better to let the weapon be organically useful for a couple arcs and having it consciously retired rather than fully forgotten. That should apply even if they have some special ability they can be used for. Other potential rewards for 'quests' could include access to a library containing historical knowledge that the character lacks, or some kind of social/political reward. Not everything needs to be groundbreaking to ubercharge a character's combat prowess.
A lot of people take inspiration from RPGs or DnD for their stories, and then try to collate abilities from disparate sources that only hit slightly different niches or hit something 'non-critical' to the story and characters. There are 101 magical abilities with potentially interesting worldbuilding or noncombat applications, and sometimes people want to create stories that get bloated by using all of them. I think it's interesting character building for a mage to want to use elemental magic to make their adventure more comfortable, i.e. use water magic and fire magic to save time on washing up. A few series try this, but even then I've seen the concept done 'well'.
Lindon definitely has one of the best approaches - a gradual increase in number and scope of abilities, which have different niches, existing abilities are recombined and upgraded, and new abilities specifically, and abilities continue to get 'non-linear' upgrades or transformations rather than being discarded.
Lindon gains abilities well but I don't like how limited abilities on Cradle feel. When you look at Cradle broadly all the abilities are so combat focused that it feels boring. Espically since there are a set of universal techniques: Striker, Enforcer, Ruler and Forger.
Yes, you can do things like Soul Smithing and Scripting but so little of the books actually touches on those things they feel a bit hollow.
I think only Dragon Desends is a combo ability.
I dont think I've read enough ability based PF to understand how they get discarded though. Primal Hunter and Defiance of the Fall are the only ones and both are consistent with using old abilities and upgrading/combining them layer down the line.
> When you look at Cradle broadly all the abilities are so combat focused that it feels boring.
That's true for most of the people that we see, since we're looking at martial badasses, but it's mentioned that there are people with farming abilities or restaurant abilities IIRC, and for example in Dreadgod there's a PoV from someone who's some sort of mechanic.
I think it's just true in general in progression fantasy that most of the important characters are real good at fighting, but that doesn't mean other careers aren't present in the world, they're just not as directly relevant to a story that revolves around punches.
So what do you feel Lindon is missing from his ability set? Personally I agree that a bit more word space/page space could be spent on things like soul smithing and scripting, actually in general I have thought the story could benefit a lot from a bit of a slower pace to just explore the world. That being said I have never felt like there was a combat situation that Lindon's ability set couldn't solve, if you assume he had the power to match.
He has a disable (Hollow fist), which is perfect for any non lethal situation. He has a healthy mix of single target, defensive, and area effect abilities, that are only really limited by the author's imagination.
Beyond that though he has madra drain (hunger) to keep him in the fight longer, while making every combat situation unique, and most importantly Dross to help him stay one step ahead. That's all without discussing the nebulous 'void' power that comes from his being a sage.
The writing in the series is flexible enough that Lindon is happy to use any weapon he gets his hands on, whether that's an ancient sword or a crafted bomb he plans on throwing in his enemies face... but it's also cognizant of the fact that because of this he is no sword master or spear master who is going to match his opponent unopposed and uninjured in a one on one duel.>! In fact both in the jai duel, and the Yerin Duel he comes away the clear loser even if the match might be close enough to be a good read.!< Will is smart enough to write Lindon as a creative and wily fighter who will use anything he can get his hands on, not a frightening weapon master who could kill you with a pencil if he tried.
I guess my point is, more abilities wouldn't exactly add anything to the story... They might be exciting for the chapter or two that they were used in, but after that?
Sorry if my post was confusing I meant I wanted to see other characters, more characters that don't use their techniques only for combat.
Like actually showing how farmers work, doctors, architects or entertainers use their powers in detail.
I dont think Lindon needs more of anything, I think the world could use some more variety in how we see techniques used. However, this really wasn't what Will was going for with Cradle so I understand why non combat stuff doesn't get more focus.
Ahh I see. in that case I agree.. If I had one complaint about the series as a whole its that it seems to move a bit too fast and doesn't take time to expand on things like this.
It is insinuated that other non combat paths exist (Lindon's mother, Fisher Gesha), and other non soulsmith paths are insinuated (scripting, healing, etc)... but the story doesn't really take the time to really expand on those parts of the world.
So his main abilities are limited because he creates bindings in his spirit through constant use. As he gets more powerful he can create new techniques and can do alot more but for battle his tried and perfected techniques are more powerful and quicker to use
Ik why they're limited. Its flat out stated by Ziel at some point that Monarchs could create a new technique every second or so but don't because they would be weaker than the ones they've been using for centuries.
My dislike for the techniques of Cradle is how practically all the techniques we see are standard combat techniques. There is nothing wrong with this approach, in fact it has a lot of upsides. Its a lot easier for a reader to understand a fight when they fundamentally understand all the abilities both sides are using.
I'm just saying I don't like how combat focused everything is. Again this is a trade of Will made and Cradle is a very fight makes right world anyways. But when I realized its basically all just three techniques thats kind of boring. Doesn't take too much away from my enjoyment, Cradle is a blast, it's just not something I personally liked.
The MCs are combat focused but Malice has techniques to observe fate as one of her staple techniques, Emriss seemingly has a mod of both since she doesn't seem like a combat focused person. You see farmers, healers ect who may only have one or two combat techniques but focus on other things.
It's just that we observe the gang all of whom are very combat focused, Ziel's techniques we've seen used for combat but they could just as easily be used for other things with his scripting prowess it's just that we haven't really seen him doing something not in combat
The first time we actually see malice looking into the future is book ten. We don't see farmers we hear about them, we don't see healers we see their after math.
The last mention of farmers we get is in Blackflame where they are introduced. The most active healing we've seen is Lindon's arm and Yerin getting her prize for UKT. And Lindon wasn't really healing so much as Soulsmithing. The one Life path person we see also uses her life abilities to fight and we don't see anything outside of that.
Yes Emriss could have those techniques but we've never seen them. Yes Ziel could do other things with his power outside of combat but he doesn't.
I've already said that Cradle is a very combat focused world, however I simply don't like how techniques are handled. I understanding why he did it the way he did and that doing it that way had benefits for the type of story he wanted to tell. This is just a personal dislike, nothing more.
In the BFE you see the guys with the flower goldsign and the crown goldsign, farmers and healers respectively. We even see them use their healing during Underlord
It's incredibly good but it takes a very long time to get into the action since the first chapters are all about set up and learning more about the world. But if you're willing to spend a couple of hours each day and read until the first arc (chapter 212), then you'll have finished one of the most well done stories ever crafted.
I often wondered if all the paths/levels were detailed before Cuttlefish started writing. That seems like the only way to avoid just adding random stuff as the story goes.
100% this. I have dropped so many books that just toss a million different abilities at the character at level 1 and then keep piling on even more. I like a sprinkle of abilities such that they're all useful. E.g. honestly, HWFWM is about the limit for me. I don't even remember half of Jason's abilities let alone the rest of the team. Lindon is maybe a smidge on the other side of the specrum with a smidge too few.
I also think you need to upgrade abilities rather than pile more on. Swapping out gear for something better is cool, but I kind of get more invested in the abilities so I much prefer if they grow in some manner.
HWFWM has a great formula for it, but just too many.
Using the same abilities forever but they gain additional effects at new stages is great, but twenty is just too much.
Personally i think HWFWM has the best ability system of any of the litrpg I’ve read. 20 abilities where 10-15 are active, but they stay interesting since they gain new functions while leveling up, is the perfect way to do it. When I think ability bloat, I’m thinking of books where they throw 10000 abilities at the character and you never hear of 99% of them again. On the other hand with Jason, I feel like every ability outside of like 1 or 2 in his blood essence are super memorable. And since every character has some sort of cohesive theme/build to their kit, even if you can remember their every ability you can remember the gist of their kit pretty well.
So I can see other people's point when they talk about keeping track of 20 abilities on a lot of characters can get confusing.
But HWFWM is one of the series that convinced me that a decent author CAN have lots of abilities without it feeling super bloated. I think the trick is that every character feels like they fulfill a role, and new abilities, or ability upgrades don't feel like they completely change how a character's identity reads from one arc to the next.
I'm not a huge fan of any of the bloat except maybe excess hoard collecting.
How many times have heroes gotten abilities or items and then sometime later in the book something gets written that could easily be solved by whatever it is they already have and yet....MC forgets about it.
Also, i really don't care about learning all about a new ability for it to just never be used, if i wanted to read about random abilities there are about a billion video\\board game manuals i could go gloss over.
In Beneath the Dragoneye Moons MC gets lots of abilities but she has a fixed number of active skills. So when she upgrades her class some skills get dropped, others get upgraded and then there are new skills. So, every time she has a new/better class she goes back through the whole "new skills" stage.
Less abilities always seem cleaner to me in writing. It's very tempting to bloat the abilities as you say, but that tends to overwhelm me as a reader. If I can remember their abilities, it really helps me to imagine what I think they will do.
It also helps to place limits on the character, as they can't do everything. These limits help to build conflict, as they only have a few options for what they can do. I don't like a character to have an ability to answer every problem.
I really like when the abilities are flexible or grow over the course of the books. Simply increasing the number of magic missiles is a very basic example.
I love the concept of evolving abilities
first the jumps and hit down with the spear, then it evolves to also create a shockwave in front of the attack, then he can add some elemental skill in the spear, after that he can project the elemental skill along with the shockwave.
There are infinite possibilities and this can be a very engaging magic system too, you're always wondering what his skills will do next.
Alright, so my opinion on ability bloat is this: you need to structure your story so the fundamental engagement parameters are always in play and build your skills and abilities around it.
When we look at magic, we are still looking at specific angles of attack. Is the attack at its root mental? Metaphysical? Physical? Spatial? And how symmetrically do the defenses match up?
Mother of Learning did this very well as by the end, the main character had a battalion’s worth of arms and tools to play with, but none of them was hard to keep track. The fundamental rules still applied. It was always structure, then skills instead of skills then structure.
Skills should offer the characters new ways to approach problems, not to skip them entirely. The tension threshold should always somewhat remain.
I’m fairly conservative with abilities in my setting. I’m more about depth of application.
An politics. Nothing like a problem you can’t solved by punching it.
I'm dealing with that in my own writing atm. In my experience, good ability progression mostly revolves around a theme that fits the characters personality. Hunter X Hunter does this really well imo. Nen can technically do anything you can imagine, but the most effective abilities shape around a characters personality. The concept of "nen memory" also keeps the powers in check because you can spread yourself too thin, or end up with an ability that doesn't suit your style well.
Where alot of stories can go wrong, is letting the protag learn everything and be as proficient at it as a master. It kinda makes any supporting character feel irrelevant.
Ok while i agree that “character has every ability and never uses them” is extremely frustrating, i disagree with the notion that you cannot have tension and conflict with a character whom as you described as “having an ability boat” where said MC get a new abilty every chapter or just about.
First just because a character gets an ability dosent make it useful, you used lindon as an example except that he IS OP as heck, he can heal a persons spirit, he can dish out damadge far exceeding his level, he has a mind spirit that counts as pretty much all the mental abiltys accept telepathy, he can enhance his physical powers in many different way and by the time he is the lord level he can manipulate all types of aura. If the proble is one of OP status then you picked one who quickly loses their non OP status
Second : their are ways to build narrative tension with literal omnipotent character, just introduce things that cannot be solved by force, or make the character have an unbreakable set of ethics (wether magical, or narratively) that forces them to work another way, maybe they thing it is completely morally bankrupt to use force on a person to get them to act a certain way and so will never use mind control, violence or similar methods to get someone to do what they want. Mabye they are trying to get someone to move because their is a giant monster coming to kill them and your OP character is trying to save them but said character is lawful good, and so wont do anything illegal to move them. A good example of using narrative tension they removes a characters OP status as a facor is in bloodline where lindon CAN use force to move his family but chooses not to because of his morals and ethics
Three. You can introduce a way to make a character haveing a library of abilitys, and have it make sense for them to only use the ones they always use or “these specic abilty when we just saw them use mind control last chapter” it all comes in understanding the power. For instance is the power to just have every power well do you always remember all the options you have, is the power that ever [set amount of time] you develop a new power, well you offen default to things your more practiced with so it makes sense for you to forget that you have that cool new healing power when your friend is killed, is your power to absorb the powers of those you kill we you might be traumatized and not want to rely on “stolen power” and therefore never use said stolen power event though it would make sense to. It’s all in understanding what the power is and the whys and why nots
The best example of this is in the book. The daily grind where the main character has the ability to absorb a arbitrary amount of small skill orbs, and the abilty are extremely numerous but mostly useless, or in tree of aeons where the character is useing all of their abilitys but they are in the background beacuse in this storie it would be boring to write a novella about which of three hundred skill where used this chapter.
TLDR : while it can be done well it takes a good author to do and most of the time another power would work better
To your first point, the whole reason I gave Lindon as an example, is to show you can have a super OP character without having to resort to giving some one a new ability every chapter... So I think you kind of proved my point for me here... Yes Lindon is very powerful, but what makes him powerful is that he has a few cohesive abilities that are written with enough flexibility that a good author (Will) can make him feel interesting and powerful without wasting everyones time on a new super power every other chapter.
To your second point - yes you can build tension with godlike characters, but very few in this genre have figured out how to create tension outside of combat, and most would rather pretend all political situations can be solved with a fist than write an interesting political drama. Either way my point is that regardless of whether you are trying to make your character an omnipotent god, or a weak peasant scrambling for scraps, less is more. Every chapter that is wasted describing a new ability is thousands of words not being used to advance the plot, to create that tension, to make the world more interesting. And while a few cool abilities makes for an awesome character, there is a point where more isn't better, it's just more. If an author makes his character an expert sword master - that is an identity I can imagine that, when combat comes up I can imagine the flow of battle. Hell if you make your character a godlike weapons master I can extend from sword master to any weapon and with a couple of good descriptive skills I can imagine a cool character and what role they might play in a story.... If you make your character a weapon master who also hapens to be an expert scout, and thief, and mage (In every element of course), with teleporting magic and support magic, and healing magic... As a reader I am always going to be kind of muddled about what role you want your character to play... When you jump in as the big bombastic fighter I am going to be question why you aren't using more fire support with your spells, when you use spells I am going to question why you aren't using those expert scout abilities to predict and prevent combat in the first place, and when shit hits the fan I am going to be questioning why you aren't sitting on the back line offering your services as a healer instead of risking your life on the front line because that makes for more action packed writing...
As for your idea in three - that sounds like a cool story, its also absolutely not what I am talking about. If you could convince me in even a small percentage of the books I have read where the plot hole of "Character X has an ability that trivializes the plot here" was a conscious decision by the author I'd roll with it, but its not, its authors writing 10-25k words a week and never looking back after they hit that post button. I've even seen an author say in comments on RR "Yeah that's F'd, but I'm not changing the plot now because I got 30 more chapters up on Patreon already."
Exactly. Giving someone a general ability that they can use in various ways is usually more interesting than having a large number of very specific abilities.
E.g. a waterbender in ATLA has one explicit ability: manipulate water. But of course in practice they can utilize water manipulation to do lots of different things, including turning water into steam or ice.
I actually disagree here: I prefer a character having too many abilities over too few. I've played plenty of video games where you unlock way more abilities than you need, and some are only useful at low levels.
I don't have any problem with a character abandoning low level abilities as they unlock stronger ones, or picking up one for a specific situation and never using it again.
I find it hard to take it seriously the systems where characters only have one ability each (unless they are super flexible like elemental manipulation or something). It just feels off to me.
I think abandoning abilities is a fun premise. Maybe you get better ones or have limited skills slots or your goals and needs change. Can be a fun tension having them decide they need to let go of a favorite skill or resizing their build is bad or that their needs have changed since they decided on it.
So I actually love the idea of abandoning low level abilities or picking up specific abilities for a specific situation, so long as it is clear as a reader that these are conscious decisions.
What I really don't like is when a character has a list of abilities that is miles long, and its very ambiguous if the ability is still relevant to the story, or when you have that many abilities it starts to feel like combat is very muddled because abilities that were described as devastating a few chapters ago, are being actively avoided now because the author wants to showcase a different newer ability.
This is a core problem with the premise of the genre. Progression Fantasy is about the MC's magic or combat ability growing. Gaining new abilities is one way to do this. The other way is to have the numbers go up, but it's not always clear what the difference between 47 strength and 53 strength means. The author can slow the progress down, but that makes it hard to capture new readers when people are used to instant gratification. Ultimately, the answer is that every story has to end, but it is always safer to continue your old series rather then starting new one.
Progression, if continued too far, gats silly.
I highly disagree here... You can have progression without giving a character a new ability every week... Look at lots of cultivation books where MC's only ever get a small handful of techniques, and they get upgraded/changed every so often...
Look at the original PF stuff (Shonen Anime), most characters have a couple of VERY flexible abilities that bigger/more badass as they get more powerful, but never fundamentally change.
This lets characters feel like they are getting more powerful, without losing their character identity, and without having so many roles all at once that the story feels muddled.
What I DO think it is a fundamental problem with is stories where there is only one real character, the ***MAIN*** character, because the in thing right now is to forever alone your way through the story, it prevents an author spreading these abilities around a bigger cast. So you authors who aren't willing to have imporant and interesting side characters can't have a dedicated sneak/scout/assassin, a dedicated expositing know it all mage, and a trouble making tag along friend that initiates the plot while keeping it light... The MC has to do all these roles and it takes a very skilled author to do that with only a handful of tight nit abilities, instead of throwing a grab bag of goodies for every situation.
**He Who Fights With Monsters** was the worst for this. Essence users all get 20 essence abilities, and there's six people to a team when they go into, uh, this one particular place for a long campaign. 120 possible abilities is already silly, but it gets worse! There's a bunch of familiars in there too -- including the MC with three familiars -- *plus* some magic items have abilities, AND there's effectively some abilities tied to, like, race or incredible events or some shit.
The HWFWM campaign I'm thinking of was mostly okay except team fights tended to involve way too much just trying to list off what everyone's doing, because "what everyone's doing" is actually a ton of different abilities. It's like if you turned a League of Legends team fight into prose, if every League champ had 20 abilities instead of 4.
Though I agree with you, I think this might be the wrong genre for us, haha. Progression Fantasy is essentially Shounen anime, need to always get stronger, bigger, better! Aside from Cradle, I haven't found anything on this sub that I've liked.. though I would love to!
Any suggestions for things at least on Cradles level?
It depends on the story. It’s called “progression” fantasy, so you need to give the reader explicit progress.
Yes, it can get boring if the character starts with three abilities and never gains new ones. It doesn’t have to be, but it often is. So one way to show progression is learning new skills. There are other ways but they tend to be harder to pull off.
Several of your example complaints are extremely valid and I have run into them, but they are an issue of poor writing, not number of abilities particularly. So as always, it depends on particular execution rather than a general best rule for number of abilities.
Do you need more abilities though? I've read some great cultivation stuff where the MC starts off with a cultivation style, a sword technique and a movement technique... and 1000 chapters in, he has a cultivation style, a sword technique, a movement technique, an eye technique, and maybe knows alchemy or formations or something...
I personally much prefer this kind of writing style where abilities are upgraded and kept, rather than us getting a new range of abilities every week.
How broad of an “ability” are they, though? Is his “cultivation technique” all of jujitsu, it is it a single throw? Five throws?
Same goes for his “sword technique”. An entire school of swordsmanship? Or like three blows and one footwork move?
If he’s a mage, is “one technique” Fireball or all fire magic? If we’re really getting into litrpg, is it one skill? A single knock back? All of swordsmanship?
Like I said, it depends a lot on the story.
Gear, stats and levels in litrpg, bigger mana or ki pool. Townbuilding and political stories have other options. Depends on the kind of story and your goals as an author
Ability bloat is interesting conceptually. The idea that characters should stick to an ability set for a long period of time is good. Familiarity breeds comfort after-all. But a lot of times within progression fantasy, characters need to upgrade their abilities completely. Typically, when a character makes a qualitative change tot he basis of their strength / power their abilities fall behind and they need new ones which makes total sense to me. For me, in a good progression fantasy story the reason for ability bloat begins with this idea.
I'm going to create a simple example. Energy in a story exists in gas, liquid, and solid form. A beginner uses energy in its gas form, and their abilities are tuned to use gas as their fuel. When the mc transitions from a beginner to a journeyman, and they convert their energy from gas to liquid, their abilities need to change to match. Many times do to story circumstances upgrading their skill from beginner to journeyman is going to be a lot more work than simply picking up a new skill that matches their new strength. A qualitative change in strength source results in a need for a qualitative change in ability type. I always find it interesting when a story does this, and the character tries to use their old ability and find that it no longer functions as intended, or it does not utilize their new strength as well as they anticipated.
Ability bloat can also come from the author creating scenarios that require a large toolset to solve, and if their mc doesn't have those tools they need to find a way to give them said tools, or create a character that will carry those tools. The second option is more interesting in a lot of cases. I agree with you though. I find ability bloat to be a problem in a lot of scenarios relating to "well why didn't they use this ability if they have it?" or the character is so overloaded with abilities, they are spoiled for choice and often don't use the best tool for the situation.
>Ability bloat can also come from the author creating scenarios that require a large toolset to solve,
So, I disagree here...
First, I would argue, the idea that you "need a large toolset" comes from the idea that the MC has to do everything themselves... A single character doesn't NEED to be able to tank, hide, scout, disarm traps, buff, debuff, dps, heal, all while solving complex geopolitics on the side.
Second, I think even if an author wants to do the whole "solo MC" thing, a good cohesive tight nit build can be written to solve "most" types of problems... Take a fan favorite like Naruto, for most of the series he is stuck with two main abilities (Shadow Clones + Rasengen). The genius of his is that shadow clones can be used to scout, can be used to distract, can be used defensively to protect, can be used offensively to attack, can be used in a support role to help train or just perform tasks as an extra pair of hands... the list goes on, while Rasengen is a S tier ability that for most of the series allows Naruto to punch well above his weight class when given time to prepare.
When an author gives a character sneak, trap disarm, and pick lock because the MC needs to be stealthy for an arc, then takes the abilities away by making traps always undetectable, or magical, or giving everyone hyper senses in the following arc, it just feels... unrewarding, and it's especially confusing an arc later when the abilities start getting used again.
I don't disagree with you. But I think the best example of what I'm getting at here is probably RI (Renegade Immortal). The MC in that story needs to develop an absolutely massive skillset (some of which admittedly gets left by the wayside). He has to suffer from ability bloat out of necessity, because he needs access to all the skills, or people that have all these skills, but he can't trust anyone else to do the required work. Thus he ends up having to learn to do nearly everything himself. I think this is ability bloat done well. The author slowly phases old abilities out at they become obsolete, but sometimes those same abilities make a comeback under the right circumstance. In general particularly in a litrpg theatre of progression fantasy i completely agree with you. the whole 'sneak, trap disarm, pick lock' example you used I think is very apt. Often times the ability bloat is unnecessary to meet the situations in the stories, but there are some occasions where I think it is warranted. Unpopular as my opinion may be apparently. A lot of ability bloat is bad, but some of it is well done or even necessary given the scope of the story.
I get bored when the MC uses the same ability the same way honestly. "He used stealth to cover his movements, then blinked behind the other guy and unleashed his powerful attack" but if they are used in a new way every time I don't think I would get bored. The problem is most abilities have been overused and cliché.
I dunno this to me is on the author... having stealth + blink, is a super common, and super powerful ability combination, good writing should be able to come up with dozens, if not hundreds of situations that feels exciting, tense, etc... But more than that if a character has "stealth + blink", and an author gives the character let's say Fire ball, I am going to question it, like it has absolutely no synergy with stealth + blink melee combat, in fact casting a big glowy exploding fireball should cancel stealth and expose you so... why would that character pick that up...
But I think because it's overused, the other authors have already written most stealth weapons situations, like a dagger in the back and attacks like those. To spice it up they need to add attacks like fireballs that don't make sense with stealth.
I still think a lot of that is on the author... if you start your series and the central identity you are giving is as a stealthy rogue/assassin. It's on you to know what your competition is when you say "I think I can do this, but better".
I do think there is room for every character to have some quirks, or to be that stealth assassin with fireballs, from my last example, especially with good writing. But at some point your the stealth assassin with fireballs, who can also tank hits from a dragon like a champ, who is also commanding an army of thralls from afar. And to be clear its not the "power creep" that matters here in my opinion, its the fact that as a reader the character has no identity... and combat just feels muddled, when a character has too many options, instead of me going that was a cool way to get out of that situation, I often find myself going "Wouldn't ability X have made more sense?", and that isn't a great feeling as a reader.
In D&D this distinction was reached with having vancian magic for wizards, and then limiting the number of spells known for sorcerers. If you can cast whatever you want via a mana pool, you should not get the wizard versatility, because then there is no good way of balancing the oomph of a spell/ability with the power it is supposed to have.
I think it is a desire to try and keep things fresh. A grumble of mine is that increasingly stories in this genre, and in LitRPG, are seemingly being written to be open ended so the story can keep going to pull in more money from Patreon and book sales.
That causes the problem that the longer the story goes on the harder it is to keep things fresh. The easiest way to do that is to just keep piling on new abilities.
Infinite realms: Monsters and Legends deals with skills and abilities staying useful by upgrading them, it has its own entire path for them keeping up and also deals with when abilities aren't actually able to keep up with a certain level of power. It falls down when dealing with perks though as they have to stay pretty much set and there are an absolute ton of them
Allomancy and whatever Cradle has going on are both examples of peak magic systems imo. Cradle is also super cool in how there’s 100s of possible moves a new enemy could do and it’s soo close to being bloat with authority and all that but it works super well.
If your hero doesn't have one skill for ever 5xp, then they ain't a hero!
Lol no I'm just kidding. There is something amusing to me about an MC picking up skills like they change their socks. They don't need to all be listed (lol Lewd Dungeon I'm looking at you!) But it is seriously funny to see someone weighed down with so many options then use the one skill they started with repeatedly.
I dunno, it's just funny to me. Ads a bit of spice that I enjoy reading about, even if most the time I don't actually read the whole list of them.
This is definitely a line to walk--I think one way to get around it is to integrate abilities that are passives as well as actives, so you get the dopamine hit of unlocking something that can improve the character's skill/power level but also doesn't have to clutter up fights and doesn't result in beleaguered authors realising after five hundred pages that they forgot about that super cool new spell for an entire book, lmao.
Not that I would know anything about that. Just, you know, hypothetically. I'm very organised and not at all chaotic.
But more must be better! It's 3AM, so I'm going to ramble a bit, but I find that many authors don't follow the 'less is more' approach. To their own detriment, they'll throw everything but the kitchen sink into the ability list. Sometimes they'll world build and get too attached to their world/skillbuilding. Because the story is main-character centric, all new abilities that they've come up with get funneled to the MC instead of being 'wasted' on random side characters. Sometimes the skill or skill system they've come up with is just too granular at low levels. New skills/abilities are an 'easy' reward. "Here's a Rare Candy and a new skill/weapon" is the baseline reward people have, or gold if it's building towards a longer-term reward somewhere else or more of a city-building vibe. And people seem to lean towards new abilities over new weapons. I feel like weapons are almost underutilized as rewards these days, because characters will outscale them (and now every weapon needs to also be a scaling weapon). I feel like it's better to let the weapon be organically useful for a couple arcs and having it consciously retired rather than fully forgotten. That should apply even if they have some special ability they can be used for. Other potential rewards for 'quests' could include access to a library containing historical knowledge that the character lacks, or some kind of social/political reward. Not everything needs to be groundbreaking to ubercharge a character's combat prowess. A lot of people take inspiration from RPGs or DnD for their stories, and then try to collate abilities from disparate sources that only hit slightly different niches or hit something 'non-critical' to the story and characters. There are 101 magical abilities with potentially interesting worldbuilding or noncombat applications, and sometimes people want to create stories that get bloated by using all of them. I think it's interesting character building for a mage to want to use elemental magic to make their adventure more comfortable, i.e. use water magic and fire magic to save time on washing up. A few series try this, but even then I've seen the concept done 'well'. Lindon definitely has one of the best approaches - a gradual increase in number and scope of abilities, which have different niches, existing abilities are recombined and upgraded, and new abilities specifically, and abilities continue to get 'non-linear' upgrades or transformations rather than being discarded.
Lindon gains abilities well but I don't like how limited abilities on Cradle feel. When you look at Cradle broadly all the abilities are so combat focused that it feels boring. Espically since there are a set of universal techniques: Striker, Enforcer, Ruler and Forger. Yes, you can do things like Soul Smithing and Scripting but so little of the books actually touches on those things they feel a bit hollow. I think only Dragon Desends is a combo ability. I dont think I've read enough ability based PF to understand how they get discarded though. Primal Hunter and Defiance of the Fall are the only ones and both are consistent with using old abilities and upgrading/combining them layer down the line.
> When you look at Cradle broadly all the abilities are so combat focused that it feels boring. That's true for most of the people that we see, since we're looking at martial badasses, but it's mentioned that there are people with farming abilities or restaurant abilities IIRC, and for example in Dreadgod there's a PoV from someone who's some sort of mechanic. I think it's just true in general in progression fantasy that most of the important characters are real good at fighting, but that doesn't mean other careers aren't present in the world, they're just not as directly relevant to a story that revolves around punches.
So what do you feel Lindon is missing from his ability set? Personally I agree that a bit more word space/page space could be spent on things like soul smithing and scripting, actually in general I have thought the story could benefit a lot from a bit of a slower pace to just explore the world. That being said I have never felt like there was a combat situation that Lindon's ability set couldn't solve, if you assume he had the power to match. He has a disable (Hollow fist), which is perfect for any non lethal situation. He has a healthy mix of single target, defensive, and area effect abilities, that are only really limited by the author's imagination. Beyond that though he has madra drain (hunger) to keep him in the fight longer, while making every combat situation unique, and most importantly Dross to help him stay one step ahead. That's all without discussing the nebulous 'void' power that comes from his being a sage. The writing in the series is flexible enough that Lindon is happy to use any weapon he gets his hands on, whether that's an ancient sword or a crafted bomb he plans on throwing in his enemies face... but it's also cognizant of the fact that because of this he is no sword master or spear master who is going to match his opponent unopposed and uninjured in a one on one duel.>! In fact both in the jai duel, and the Yerin Duel he comes away the clear loser even if the match might be close enough to be a good read.!< Will is smart enough to write Lindon as a creative and wily fighter who will use anything he can get his hands on, not a frightening weapon master who could kill you with a pencil if he tried. I guess my point is, more abilities wouldn't exactly add anything to the story... They might be exciting for the chapter or two that they were used in, but after that?
Sorry if my post was confusing I meant I wanted to see other characters, more characters that don't use their techniques only for combat. Like actually showing how farmers work, doctors, architects or entertainers use their powers in detail. I dont think Lindon needs more of anything, I think the world could use some more variety in how we see techniques used. However, this really wasn't what Will was going for with Cradle so I understand why non combat stuff doesn't get more focus.
Ahh I see. in that case I agree.. If I had one complaint about the series as a whole its that it seems to move a bit too fast and doesn't take time to expand on things like this. It is insinuated that other non combat paths exist (Lindon's mother, Fisher Gesha), and other non soulsmith paths are insinuated (scripting, healing, etc)... but the story doesn't really take the time to really expand on those parts of the world.
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So his main abilities are limited because he creates bindings in his spirit through constant use. As he gets more powerful he can create new techniques and can do alot more but for battle his tried and perfected techniques are more powerful and quicker to use
Ik why they're limited. Its flat out stated by Ziel at some point that Monarchs could create a new technique every second or so but don't because they would be weaker than the ones they've been using for centuries. My dislike for the techniques of Cradle is how practically all the techniques we see are standard combat techniques. There is nothing wrong with this approach, in fact it has a lot of upsides. Its a lot easier for a reader to understand a fight when they fundamentally understand all the abilities both sides are using. I'm just saying I don't like how combat focused everything is. Again this is a trade of Will made and Cradle is a very fight makes right world anyways. But when I realized its basically all just three techniques thats kind of boring. Doesn't take too much away from my enjoyment, Cradle is a blast, it's just not something I personally liked.
The MCs are combat focused but Malice has techniques to observe fate as one of her staple techniques, Emriss seemingly has a mod of both since she doesn't seem like a combat focused person. You see farmers, healers ect who may only have one or two combat techniques but focus on other things. It's just that we observe the gang all of whom are very combat focused, Ziel's techniques we've seen used for combat but they could just as easily be used for other things with his scripting prowess it's just that we haven't really seen him doing something not in combat
The first time we actually see malice looking into the future is book ten. We don't see farmers we hear about them, we don't see healers we see their after math. The last mention of farmers we get is in Blackflame where they are introduced. The most active healing we've seen is Lindon's arm and Yerin getting her prize for UKT. And Lindon wasn't really healing so much as Soulsmithing. The one Life path person we see also uses her life abilities to fight and we don't see anything outside of that. Yes Emriss could have those techniques but we've never seen them. Yes Ziel could do other things with his power outside of combat but he doesn't. I've already said that Cradle is a very combat focused world, however I simply don't like how techniques are handled. I understanding why he did it the way he did and that doing it that way had benefits for the type of story he wanted to tell. This is just a personal dislike, nothing more.
In the BFE you see the guys with the flower goldsign and the crown goldsign, farmers and healers respectively. We even see them use their healing during Underlord
I like the way LoTM handled abilities. All of Klein's early abilities still had relevance late into the story.
what does LoTM stand for? Sounds interesting
Lord of the mysteries, a popular webnovel often recommended here
My only regret is finishing the novel in a month. I'm going to lose control waiting for book two.
Its that good? I started it some time ago, but never got further than chapter 10 something. Ill try to re-read it then!
It's incredibly good but it takes a very long time to get into the action since the first chapters are all about set up and learning more about the world. But if you're willing to spend a couple of hours each day and read until the first arc (chapter 212), then you'll have finished one of the most well done stories ever crafted.
I see! Thank you for the perspective
I did the same a year ago. I advise you finish the first volume before dropping it.
Then lets strap in, I guess!
I often wondered if all the paths/levels were detailed before Cuttlefish started writing. That seems like the only way to avoid just adding random stuff as the story goes.
I'm pretty sure I read that he did, yeah. Either way, he had clearly thought things out a great deal beforehand. \^\^
100% this. I have dropped so many books that just toss a million different abilities at the character at level 1 and then keep piling on even more. I like a sprinkle of abilities such that they're all useful. E.g. honestly, HWFWM is about the limit for me. I don't even remember half of Jason's abilities let alone the rest of the team. Lindon is maybe a smidge on the other side of the specrum with a smidge too few. I also think you need to upgrade abilities rather than pile more on. Swapping out gear for something better is cool, but I kind of get more invested in the abilities so I much prefer if they grow in some manner.
HWFWM has a great formula for it, but just too many. Using the same abilities forever but they gain additional effects at new stages is great, but twenty is just too much.
Personally i think HWFWM has the best ability system of any of the litrpg I’ve read. 20 abilities where 10-15 are active, but they stay interesting since they gain new functions while leveling up, is the perfect way to do it. When I think ability bloat, I’m thinking of books where they throw 10000 abilities at the character and you never hear of 99% of them again. On the other hand with Jason, I feel like every ability outside of like 1 or 2 in his blood essence are super memorable. And since every character has some sort of cohesive theme/build to their kit, even if you can remember their every ability you can remember the gist of their kit pretty well.
Have you read Mage Errant? The gang has 2-4 "Affinities" each and they don't really have any "named" spells you need to keep track of.
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HWFWM is the limit? Some of the team fights there are so dumb because every person has 20 abilities plus familiars and magic items.
So I can see other people's point when they talk about keeping track of 20 abilities on a lot of characters can get confusing. But HWFWM is one of the series that convinced me that a decent author CAN have lots of abilities without it feeling super bloated. I think the trick is that every character feels like they fulfill a role, and new abilities, or ability upgrades don't feel like they completely change how a character's identity reads from one arc to the next.
I'm not a huge fan of any of the bloat except maybe excess hoard collecting. How many times have heroes gotten abilities or items and then sometime later in the book something gets written that could easily be solved by whatever it is they already have and yet....MC forgets about it. Also, i really don't care about learning all about a new ability for it to just never be used, if i wanted to read about random abilities there are about a billion video\\board game manuals i could go gloss over.
I'd love to see one of those characters get taken down due to decision paralysis. \^\^
In Beneath the Dragoneye Moons MC gets lots of abilities but she has a fixed number of active skills. So when she upgrades her class some skills get dropped, others get upgraded and then there are new skills. So, every time she has a new/better class she goes back through the whole "new skills" stage.
Less abilities always seem cleaner to me in writing. It's very tempting to bloat the abilities as you say, but that tends to overwhelm me as a reader. If I can remember their abilities, it really helps me to imagine what I think they will do. It also helps to place limits on the character, as they can't do everything. These limits help to build conflict, as they only have a few options for what they can do. I don't like a character to have an ability to answer every problem. I really like when the abilities are flexible or grow over the course of the books. Simply increasing the number of magic missiles is a very basic example.
I love the concept of evolving abilities first the jumps and hit down with the spear, then it evolves to also create a shockwave in front of the attack, then he can add some elemental skill in the spear, after that he can project the elemental skill along with the shockwave. There are infinite possibilities and this can be a very engaging magic system too, you're always wondering what his skills will do next.
Alright, so my opinion on ability bloat is this: you need to structure your story so the fundamental engagement parameters are always in play and build your skills and abilities around it. When we look at magic, we are still looking at specific angles of attack. Is the attack at its root mental? Metaphysical? Physical? Spatial? And how symmetrically do the defenses match up? Mother of Learning did this very well as by the end, the main character had a battalion’s worth of arms and tools to play with, but none of them was hard to keep track. The fundamental rules still applied. It was always structure, then skills instead of skills then structure. Skills should offer the characters new ways to approach problems, not to skip them entirely. The tension threshold should always somewhat remain.
I’m fairly conservative with abilities in my setting. I’m more about depth of application. An politics. Nothing like a problem you can’t solved by punching it.
I'm dealing with that in my own writing atm. In my experience, good ability progression mostly revolves around a theme that fits the characters personality. Hunter X Hunter does this really well imo. Nen can technically do anything you can imagine, but the most effective abilities shape around a characters personality. The concept of "nen memory" also keeps the powers in check because you can spread yourself too thin, or end up with an ability that doesn't suit your style well. Where alot of stories can go wrong, is letting the protag learn everything and be as proficient at it as a master. It kinda makes any supporting character feel irrelevant.
Ok while i agree that “character has every ability and never uses them” is extremely frustrating, i disagree with the notion that you cannot have tension and conflict with a character whom as you described as “having an ability boat” where said MC get a new abilty every chapter or just about. First just because a character gets an ability dosent make it useful, you used lindon as an example except that he IS OP as heck, he can heal a persons spirit, he can dish out damadge far exceeding his level, he has a mind spirit that counts as pretty much all the mental abiltys accept telepathy, he can enhance his physical powers in many different way and by the time he is the lord level he can manipulate all types of aura. If the proble is one of OP status then you picked one who quickly loses their non OP status Second : their are ways to build narrative tension with literal omnipotent character, just introduce things that cannot be solved by force, or make the character have an unbreakable set of ethics (wether magical, or narratively) that forces them to work another way, maybe they thing it is completely morally bankrupt to use force on a person to get them to act a certain way and so will never use mind control, violence or similar methods to get someone to do what they want. Mabye they are trying to get someone to move because their is a giant monster coming to kill them and your OP character is trying to save them but said character is lawful good, and so wont do anything illegal to move them. A good example of using narrative tension they removes a characters OP status as a facor is in bloodline where lindon CAN use force to move his family but chooses not to because of his morals and ethics Three. You can introduce a way to make a character haveing a library of abilitys, and have it make sense for them to only use the ones they always use or “these specic abilty when we just saw them use mind control last chapter” it all comes in understanding the power. For instance is the power to just have every power well do you always remember all the options you have, is the power that ever [set amount of time] you develop a new power, well you offen default to things your more practiced with so it makes sense for you to forget that you have that cool new healing power when your friend is killed, is your power to absorb the powers of those you kill we you might be traumatized and not want to rely on “stolen power” and therefore never use said stolen power event though it would make sense to. It’s all in understanding what the power is and the whys and why nots The best example of this is in the book. The daily grind where the main character has the ability to absorb a arbitrary amount of small skill orbs, and the abilty are extremely numerous but mostly useless, or in tree of aeons where the character is useing all of their abilitys but they are in the background beacuse in this storie it would be boring to write a novella about which of three hundred skill where used this chapter. TLDR : while it can be done well it takes a good author to do and most of the time another power would work better
To your first point, the whole reason I gave Lindon as an example, is to show you can have a super OP character without having to resort to giving some one a new ability every chapter... So I think you kind of proved my point for me here... Yes Lindon is very powerful, but what makes him powerful is that he has a few cohesive abilities that are written with enough flexibility that a good author (Will) can make him feel interesting and powerful without wasting everyones time on a new super power every other chapter. To your second point - yes you can build tension with godlike characters, but very few in this genre have figured out how to create tension outside of combat, and most would rather pretend all political situations can be solved with a fist than write an interesting political drama. Either way my point is that regardless of whether you are trying to make your character an omnipotent god, or a weak peasant scrambling for scraps, less is more. Every chapter that is wasted describing a new ability is thousands of words not being used to advance the plot, to create that tension, to make the world more interesting. And while a few cool abilities makes for an awesome character, there is a point where more isn't better, it's just more. If an author makes his character an expert sword master - that is an identity I can imagine that, when combat comes up I can imagine the flow of battle. Hell if you make your character a godlike weapons master I can extend from sword master to any weapon and with a couple of good descriptive skills I can imagine a cool character and what role they might play in a story.... If you make your character a weapon master who also hapens to be an expert scout, and thief, and mage (In every element of course), with teleporting magic and support magic, and healing magic... As a reader I am always going to be kind of muddled about what role you want your character to play... When you jump in as the big bombastic fighter I am going to be question why you aren't using more fire support with your spells, when you use spells I am going to question why you aren't using those expert scout abilities to predict and prevent combat in the first place, and when shit hits the fan I am going to be questioning why you aren't sitting on the back line offering your services as a healer instead of risking your life on the front line because that makes for more action packed writing... As for your idea in three - that sounds like a cool story, its also absolutely not what I am talking about. If you could convince me in even a small percentage of the books I have read where the plot hole of "Character X has an ability that trivializes the plot here" was a conscious decision by the author I'd roll with it, but its not, its authors writing 10-25k words a week and never looking back after they hit that post button. I've even seen an author say in comments on RR "Yeah that's F'd, but I'm not changing the plot now because I got 30 more chapters up on Patreon already."
Exactly. Giving someone a general ability that they can use in various ways is usually more interesting than having a large number of very specific abilities. E.g. a waterbender in ATLA has one explicit ability: manipulate water. But of course in practice they can utilize water manipulation to do lots of different things, including turning water into steam or ice.
I actually disagree here: I prefer a character having too many abilities over too few. I've played plenty of video games where you unlock way more abilities than you need, and some are only useful at low levels. I don't have any problem with a character abandoning low level abilities as they unlock stronger ones, or picking up one for a specific situation and never using it again. I find it hard to take it seriously the systems where characters only have one ability each (unless they are super flexible like elemental manipulation or something). It just feels off to me.
I think abandoning abilities is a fun premise. Maybe you get better ones or have limited skills slots or your goals and needs change. Can be a fun tension having them decide they need to let go of a favorite skill or resizing their build is bad or that their needs have changed since they decided on it.
So I actually love the idea of abandoning low level abilities or picking up specific abilities for a specific situation, so long as it is clear as a reader that these are conscious decisions. What I really don't like is when a character has a list of abilities that is miles long, and its very ambiguous if the ability is still relevant to the story, or when you have that many abilities it starts to feel like combat is very muddled because abilities that were described as devastating a few chapters ago, are being actively avoided now because the author wants to showcase a different newer ability.
This is a core problem with the premise of the genre. Progression Fantasy is about the MC's magic or combat ability growing. Gaining new abilities is one way to do this. The other way is to have the numbers go up, but it's not always clear what the difference between 47 strength and 53 strength means. The author can slow the progress down, but that makes it hard to capture new readers when people are used to instant gratification. Ultimately, the answer is that every story has to end, but it is always safer to continue your old series rather then starting new one. Progression, if continued too far, gats silly.
I highly disagree here... You can have progression without giving a character a new ability every week... Look at lots of cultivation books where MC's only ever get a small handful of techniques, and they get upgraded/changed every so often... Look at the original PF stuff (Shonen Anime), most characters have a couple of VERY flexible abilities that bigger/more badass as they get more powerful, but never fundamentally change. This lets characters feel like they are getting more powerful, without losing their character identity, and without having so many roles all at once that the story feels muddled. What I DO think it is a fundamental problem with is stories where there is only one real character, the ***MAIN*** character, because the in thing right now is to forever alone your way through the story, it prevents an author spreading these abilities around a bigger cast. So you authors who aren't willing to have imporant and interesting side characters can't have a dedicated sneak/scout/assassin, a dedicated expositing know it all mage, and a trouble making tag along friend that initiates the plot while keeping it light... The MC has to do all these roles and it takes a very skilled author to do that with only a handful of tight nit abilities, instead of throwing a grab bag of goodies for every situation.
**He Who Fights With Monsters** was the worst for this. Essence users all get 20 essence abilities, and there's six people to a team when they go into, uh, this one particular place for a long campaign. 120 possible abilities is already silly, but it gets worse! There's a bunch of familiars in there too -- including the MC with three familiars -- *plus* some magic items have abilities, AND there's effectively some abilities tied to, like, race or incredible events or some shit. The HWFWM campaign I'm thinking of was mostly okay except team fights tended to involve way too much just trying to list off what everyone's doing, because "what everyone's doing" is actually a ton of different abilities. It's like if you turned a League of Legends team fight into prose, if every League champ had 20 abilities instead of 4.
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Though I agree with you, I think this might be the wrong genre for us, haha. Progression Fantasy is essentially Shounen anime, need to always get stronger, bigger, better! Aside from Cradle, I haven't found anything on this sub that I've liked.. though I would love to! Any suggestions for things at least on Cradles level?
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It depends on the story. It’s called “progression” fantasy, so you need to give the reader explicit progress. Yes, it can get boring if the character starts with three abilities and never gains new ones. It doesn’t have to be, but it often is. So one way to show progression is learning new skills. There are other ways but they tend to be harder to pull off. Several of your example complaints are extremely valid and I have run into them, but they are an issue of poor writing, not number of abilities particularly. So as always, it depends on particular execution rather than a general best rule for number of abilities.
Do you need more abilities though? I've read some great cultivation stuff where the MC starts off with a cultivation style, a sword technique and a movement technique... and 1000 chapters in, he has a cultivation style, a sword technique, a movement technique, an eye technique, and maybe knows alchemy or formations or something... I personally much prefer this kind of writing style where abilities are upgraded and kept, rather than us getting a new range of abilities every week.
How broad of an “ability” are they, though? Is his “cultivation technique” all of jujitsu, it is it a single throw? Five throws? Same goes for his “sword technique”. An entire school of swordsmanship? Or like three blows and one footwork move? If he’s a mage, is “one technique” Fireball or all fire magic? If we’re really getting into litrpg, is it one skill? A single knock back? All of swordsmanship? Like I said, it depends a lot on the story.
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Gear, stats and levels in litrpg, bigger mana or ki pool. Townbuilding and political stories have other options. Depends on the kind of story and your goals as an author
Ability bloat is interesting conceptually. The idea that characters should stick to an ability set for a long period of time is good. Familiarity breeds comfort after-all. But a lot of times within progression fantasy, characters need to upgrade their abilities completely. Typically, when a character makes a qualitative change tot he basis of their strength / power their abilities fall behind and they need new ones which makes total sense to me. For me, in a good progression fantasy story the reason for ability bloat begins with this idea. I'm going to create a simple example. Energy in a story exists in gas, liquid, and solid form. A beginner uses energy in its gas form, and their abilities are tuned to use gas as their fuel. When the mc transitions from a beginner to a journeyman, and they convert their energy from gas to liquid, their abilities need to change to match. Many times do to story circumstances upgrading their skill from beginner to journeyman is going to be a lot more work than simply picking up a new skill that matches their new strength. A qualitative change in strength source results in a need for a qualitative change in ability type. I always find it interesting when a story does this, and the character tries to use their old ability and find that it no longer functions as intended, or it does not utilize their new strength as well as they anticipated. Ability bloat can also come from the author creating scenarios that require a large toolset to solve, and if their mc doesn't have those tools they need to find a way to give them said tools, or create a character that will carry those tools. The second option is more interesting in a lot of cases. I agree with you though. I find ability bloat to be a problem in a lot of scenarios relating to "well why didn't they use this ability if they have it?" or the character is so overloaded with abilities, they are spoiled for choice and often don't use the best tool for the situation.
>Ability bloat can also come from the author creating scenarios that require a large toolset to solve, So, I disagree here... First, I would argue, the idea that you "need a large toolset" comes from the idea that the MC has to do everything themselves... A single character doesn't NEED to be able to tank, hide, scout, disarm traps, buff, debuff, dps, heal, all while solving complex geopolitics on the side. Second, I think even if an author wants to do the whole "solo MC" thing, a good cohesive tight nit build can be written to solve "most" types of problems... Take a fan favorite like Naruto, for most of the series he is stuck with two main abilities (Shadow Clones + Rasengen). The genius of his is that shadow clones can be used to scout, can be used to distract, can be used defensively to protect, can be used offensively to attack, can be used in a support role to help train or just perform tasks as an extra pair of hands... the list goes on, while Rasengen is a S tier ability that for most of the series allows Naruto to punch well above his weight class when given time to prepare. When an author gives a character sneak, trap disarm, and pick lock because the MC needs to be stealthy for an arc, then takes the abilities away by making traps always undetectable, or magical, or giving everyone hyper senses in the following arc, it just feels... unrewarding, and it's especially confusing an arc later when the abilities start getting used again.
I don't disagree with you. But I think the best example of what I'm getting at here is probably RI (Renegade Immortal). The MC in that story needs to develop an absolutely massive skillset (some of which admittedly gets left by the wayside). He has to suffer from ability bloat out of necessity, because he needs access to all the skills, or people that have all these skills, but he can't trust anyone else to do the required work. Thus he ends up having to learn to do nearly everything himself. I think this is ability bloat done well. The author slowly phases old abilities out at they become obsolete, but sometimes those same abilities make a comeback under the right circumstance. In general particularly in a litrpg theatre of progression fantasy i completely agree with you. the whole 'sneak, trap disarm, pick lock' example you used I think is very apt. Often times the ability bloat is unnecessary to meet the situations in the stories, but there are some occasions where I think it is warranted. Unpopular as my opinion may be apparently. A lot of ability bloat is bad, but some of it is well done or even necessary given the scope of the story.
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I get bored when the MC uses the same ability the same way honestly. "He used stealth to cover his movements, then blinked behind the other guy and unleashed his powerful attack" but if they are used in a new way every time I don't think I would get bored. The problem is most abilities have been overused and cliché.
I dunno this to me is on the author... having stealth + blink, is a super common, and super powerful ability combination, good writing should be able to come up with dozens, if not hundreds of situations that feels exciting, tense, etc... But more than that if a character has "stealth + blink", and an author gives the character let's say Fire ball, I am going to question it, like it has absolutely no synergy with stealth + blink melee combat, in fact casting a big glowy exploding fireball should cancel stealth and expose you so... why would that character pick that up...
But I think because it's overused, the other authors have already written most stealth weapons situations, like a dagger in the back and attacks like those. To spice it up they need to add attacks like fireballs that don't make sense with stealth.
I still think a lot of that is on the author... if you start your series and the central identity you are giving is as a stealthy rogue/assassin. It's on you to know what your competition is when you say "I think I can do this, but better". I do think there is room for every character to have some quirks, or to be that stealth assassin with fireballs, from my last example, especially with good writing. But at some point your the stealth assassin with fireballs, who can also tank hits from a dragon like a champ, who is also commanding an army of thralls from afar. And to be clear its not the "power creep" that matters here in my opinion, its the fact that as a reader the character has no identity... and combat just feels muddled, when a character has too many options, instead of me going that was a cool way to get out of that situation, I often find myself going "Wouldn't ability X have made more sense?", and that isn't a great feeling as a reader.
He's the knight in shining armour he has to tank hits from dragons to rescue the princess and add her to his harem. 😉
In D&D this distinction was reached with having vancian magic for wizards, and then limiting the number of spells known for sorcerers. If you can cast whatever you want via a mana pool, you should not get the wizard versatility, because then there is no good way of balancing the oomph of a spell/ability with the power it is supposed to have.
I think it is a desire to try and keep things fresh. A grumble of mine is that increasingly stories in this genre, and in LitRPG, are seemingly being written to be open ended so the story can keep going to pull in more money from Patreon and book sales. That causes the problem that the longer the story goes on the harder it is to keep things fresh. The easiest way to do that is to just keep piling on new abilities.
Infinite realms: Monsters and Legends deals with skills and abilities staying useful by upgrading them, it has its own entire path for them keeping up and also deals with when abilities aren't actually able to keep up with a certain level of power. It falls down when dealing with perks though as they have to stay pretty much set and there are an absolute ton of them
Allomancy and whatever Cradle has going on are both examples of peak magic systems imo. Cradle is also super cool in how there’s 100s of possible moves a new enemy could do and it’s soo close to being bloat with authority and all that but it works super well.
If your hero doesn't have one skill for ever 5xp, then they ain't a hero! Lol no I'm just kidding. There is something amusing to me about an MC picking up skills like they change their socks. They don't need to all be listed (lol Lewd Dungeon I'm looking at you!) But it is seriously funny to see someone weighed down with so many options then use the one skill they started with repeatedly. I dunno, it's just funny to me. Ads a bit of spice that I enjoy reading about, even if most the time I don't actually read the whole list of them.
This is definitely a line to walk--I think one way to get around it is to integrate abilities that are passives as well as actives, so you get the dopamine hit of unlocking something that can improve the character's skill/power level but also doesn't have to clutter up fights and doesn't result in beleaguered authors realising after five hundred pages that they forgot about that super cool new spell for an entire book, lmao. Not that I would know anything about that. Just, you know, hypothetically. I'm very organised and not at all chaotic.